A three- or four-block walk might not deter a determined customer. But some downtown Portland shop owners and employees worry how the change to Fareless Square will affect business.

On Jan. 3, the free bus rides that have been a part of the downtown landscape since the mid-1970s will end. MAX light-rail and Portland Streetcar trips within the zone will remain free.

For businesses that depend on impulse buys and heavy foot traffic, some fear that the end of free bus rides could change traffic enough to affect sales.

Sandy Perez runs Fruitlandia, a newly opened smoothie and sweets shop, with her family. The store is near the downtown transit mall, and Perez said people often spot the shop on the way to or from a bus stop.

“We’re definitely going to miss it,” Perez said of the free bus zone. “Some people just take (the bus) for a few stops.”

Soon, people may be more likely to stay closer to their workplace or other downtown destination than buy a ticket for an impulse trip.

MAX yellow-line and green-line trains, which began serving the downtown transit mall earlier this year, will remain free throughout the old Fareless Square area. But the wait between trains is seven or eight minutes.

Eireann Young, a sales associate at Payless ShoeSource, said the store’s sales have been on a transit-mall roller coaster. Work to install rails along the mall drove customers away, she said.

“Once construction stopped, our business picked up,” Young said. “We’ll probably have a slowdown in January.

“Maybe in February it will pick up again.”

Payless is on the transit mall, with a bus stop directly across the street. Customers often step off a bus and into the store, Young said. “We get a lot of people who are waiting for a bus, or on their lunch break, who come inside and look around.”

Farther north on the transit mall, The Original also benefits from having a bus stop directly in front of it, restaurant hostess Nicole Purcell said. “People come in when they’re waiting for their bus and have a cup of coffee or have a piece of pie,” she said.

MAX light-rail trains also pass by the diner, but they don’t stop.

Other businesspeople doubt the changes will affect them. Kristen Turnbloom, who works at the Peet’s Coffee & Tea on Southwest Broadway, said many transit riders stop by, but most aren’t riding the bus for free.

“A lot of people take the bus, but they’re coming from a long way,” she said. “I don’t think (the change) will really affect us.”

The Portland Business Alliance, Portland’s chamber of commerce, came to the same conclusion after many conversations and task-force meetings, said Megan Doern, director of communications. “People have lots of options for getting around, and moving to rail-only made sense.”

In most cases, a free rail stop is within three or four blocks of where a previously fareless bus stop is, TriMet transit district officials noted in announcing the change. Fareless Square will be renamed Free Rail Zone accordingly.

Given how downtown has developed, the change is reasonable, Doern said. “I think it would be a different conversation if the green line hadn’t opened, and the streetcar hadn’t opened,” she said.

“There are still a lot of mobility options for businesses and people and convention-goers to get over to the convention center and back.”

4 comments

I work in a building on 4th Avenue that has a bus stop served by the 12 line (which I use to commute to/from work).

Starting next week, I will no longer be able to have my non-bus pass toting friends join me, unless I want to walk four blocks to catch a MAX train.

As for “safety” I have never felt unsafe on the bus or around a downtown bus stop. I have, however, felt unsafe at the Lloyd Center MAX stop – which, ironically, is what started the debate over the future of Fareless Square. And somehow TriMet morphed the argument to attack bus riders and consider them “unsafe”. So we will have fewer bus riders, and the Lloyd Center MAX stop will still be full of gangbangers and drug dealers at all hours of the day.

If, as suggested, there will be little impact on Zone businesses, why the change? Will there be measurable increase in TriMet revenue? Will the new policy result in a safer MAX and bus transit? Won’t many of the elderly and disabled be at a disadvantage? Will there ever be study of the impact?